Happy Endings Are Overrated
by Dancergirl228
Summary: For Lily Luna, happy endings were too cliche, until she met someone who helped her realize that there was no reason to care.


Lily Luna Potter absolutely hated happy endings. They made everything seem cliche and boring. She hated hearing the story of how her parents met, or how her aunts and uncles met. A lot of it was very "love at first sight" cliche, which just further proved her point. She didn't think that happy endings were realistic and many people agreed with her. Her least favorite things were the awful stories her father would tell.

When Lily was little, her father would tell her and her brothers all sorts of Muggle fairy tales. In the middle of a telling of _Cinderella _one night, she decided to ask a question that had been bothering her since the first fairy tale.

"Daddy, why do these stories always end happy?" Lily asked.

"Don't you like that they have a happy ending, sweetheart?" Harry asked, slightly confused at what his six year old daughter was saying.

"No, I don't like it. Not everything is happy. That's not how it works."

Harry, James, and Albus stared at the youngest Potter, wondering how someone so young was so skeptical of a made-up story.

"Well no, not everything is happy. In the original version of _Cinderella_, her stepsisters have their eyes poked out by doves from heaven. But I leave things out to make the stories more child-friendly."

"I may be a child, but I'm not that easily fooled!" At this Lily got up from the floor and left the room to go read a book on her own, leaving her father and brothers dumbfounded.

That's not the only time Lily had left someone completely confused. During her first year at Hogwarts, Lily's cousin Rose was gushing about her first boyfriend to one of her Ravenclaw friends. Rose always let Lily tag along, being the nice person she was.

"Craig says he's going to take me to Madam Puddifoot's and Honeyduke's on the first Hogsmeade weekend!" Rose gushed.

"Oh Rose, that's so romantic! You're so lucky to have such a good boyfriend," said Melanie Pritchard. Lily didn't care for Melanie very much, as she seemed like too much of an airhead to be a Ravenclaw.

"How is that romantic?" Lily asked, completely serious. Rose and Melanie looked at her.

"How is that romantic? Have you ever been to Madam Puddifoot's before?" Melanie asked.

"No, I'm only eleven. And I don't think I would want to go if I were older. James told me he took a girl there last year and everyone was snogging and it was just uncomfortable."

"That's sort of the point of Madam Puddifoot's. It's a place for couples. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to Divination." With a flip of her hair, she was off to her next lesson.

"I don't care for her," Lily said once Melanie was out of earshot.

"She doesn't mean the things she says. But you obviously do. What's wrong with a little romance and happiness, Lily?" Rose questioned.

"I don't see the point in acting like everything's happy all the time. It's not. And I don't understand why girls fantasize about everything. Just because you dream it, it doesn't mean it's going to happen."

"I know that, but it's still fun to think about. It's like when we used to pretend when we were little. Didn't you and Albus used to do that?"

"Yes, but we pretended we were Quidditch players, which is more realistic, because we're all quite good at Quidditch."

"It's okay to want a happy ending, Lily. You should find a person who makes your happy ending seem worth it." With that Rose patted her cousin on the shoulder and headed off to her next lesson.

Frankly, Lily found Rose's advice very unhelpful. Where in the world was she supposed to find someone who made a happy ending seem worth it? At least she knew who wasn't going to contribute to her happy ending, or so she thought.

Scorpius Malfoy was the Seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team. He and Albus were friendly, but he had been vying for Rose's affections since their fourth year. As Lily was a Chaser on the same team and they were in the same house, it was sometimes hard to avoid him.

After an especially brutal practice during Lily's fifth year, she was talking to the team captain, Lucas Zabini. He was telling her that if she kept up the good work, she was sure to be captain next school year. She was so enthralled by the conversation, she did not notice who had stuck around to walk with her to the changing rooms.

"What are you still doing here, Scorpius?" she asked, a hint of suspicion in her voice.

"So I'm not allowed to wait for a friend before heading back to the changing rooms?"

"I wasn't under the impression that we were friends."

"I'm hurt, Lils. Truly hurt." Scorpius feigned shock as they continued to walk together.

"If you're trying to get to Rose through me, it's not going to work. I have morals, and I know for a fact she doesn't fancy you." They had finally reached their destination and Lily turned to her right to enter the girls' side of the room.

"I'm not even allowed to talk to you without some sort of ulterior motive? You must have me all figured out, Lily Potter," Scorpius shouted from the other side of the room.

In fact, Lily did think that she had Scorpius figured out. In her eyes he was a pompous git who was too much of a ladies' man for his own good. She didn't understand why Albus decided to hang around him so frequently, because he usually set everyone else's teeth on edge. She knew her older brother liked to see the good in people, but honestly, what good was there in Scorpius Malfoy? Lily had the slightest feeling she was going to find out the answer soon, whether she wanted to or not.

In the weeks that followed, Scorpius and Lily started spending a lot more time together, much to Lily's dismay. When she was sitting in the common room reading a book, he would pop up and begin talking to her, interrupting what she liked to call her alone time. When she was in the library studying for her O.W.L.s, he would come over and ask if she needed help, even though he probably should have been focusing on his N.E.W.T.s. And after every Quidditch practice, he would wait for her without fail to walk back to the changing rooms together. After a few weeks, Lily had had enough of the courteous Scorpius Malfoy. It was no longer odd or nice, but just annoying. She finally decided to confront him about it one day, when they were both in charge of putting away the Quidditch equipment.

"Okay Malfoy, what is up with you?"

"What do you mean, Lily?"

"Oh come off it, Scorpius! I don't know what's been up with you these past few weeks, but you've been oddly nice to me and I want to know why. I was okay with it at first, because I was having trouble with my Transfiguration coursework, but I understand it now and I don't really need help anymore. What is it you want from me if you're not interested in Rose?"

"You."

"Sorry, what?" Scorpius wanted her? The world must have ended and all hell had broken loose.

"You heard me. I want you." At first Lily thought it was all a well thought out and cruel prank that he was pulling, but she saw how serious his face was and realized that he wasn't joking.

"Why in God's name would you want me? I'm just a fifth-year. You could have your pick of any girls in seventh year. Do you realize how fit you are?" Lily blushed, realizing what she had just said. She had known ever since she met Scorpius that he was very attractive, but she had just admitted it to him, when she had barely admitted it to herself.

"Yes, I know I'm fit, but I don't like any of the girls in seventh year. I like you. It could just be because you don't throw yourself at me, but you must admit, there's something here." He continued to move closer to Lily, who began gripping her broom more firmly. He moved closer as she continued to talk.

"I guess I see your point, but I still don't understand…" She was interrupted by his lips pressed against hers.

Shocked by such a forward display of affection, Lily dropped her broom, but then she realized that in the back of her mind that she had always wanted to know what it would be like to kiss Scorpius, and she had never imagined his lips being so soft. For a moment she stopped thinking as she sunk further into the kiss, which was becoming more passionate by the second. Suddenly, she pulled away.

"What is it?" Scorpius asked.

"This isn't supposed to happen. We're not supposed to happen. We don't like each other. I'm turning into a walking cliche!"

"Lily, what are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry, I can't do this!" With that, Lily ran off, trying to fight back the tears that were forming in her eyes.

She knew that Scorpius knew all of her hiding places, so he would find her eventually, but she didn't care at the moment. She just needed to get away from him if only just for a few minutes so she could think. She knew that she fancied Scorpius, but she didn't know what could have changed in the past few weeks. This made her think that she had probably liked him for longer than she knew, which made her feel even worse. This story sounded a lot like Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron, which was one of the worst cliches of all.

As she finally sat down at their usual table in the back of library, Lily decided that she and Scorpius couldn't be together. She had always promised herself that she wouldn't become what she truly hated. She didn't want a happy ending. Not this way.

Scorpius finally caught up with her and sat beside her instead of in his usual seat across the table.

"This is the last place I expected you to be. Why did you make it so easy for me to find you?"

"I think I wanted you to find me."

"I don't understand, Lily. Why don't you want to be with me? You obviously fancy me or you wouldn't have kissed me back earlier."

"When I was younger, I swore to myself that I wouldn't find happiness in a cliche. Being with you is cliche. You're a Malfoy. I'm a Potter. Our parents don't get along but we somehow found each other. The whole thing is such a big cliche."

"Love is a cliche, Lils!" Scorpius shouted. After realizing they were in the library, he continued in a whisper. "Everything about romance is completely sappy and dumb. But when you've found the right person, it makes all the sappy crap seem less dumb."

"You're only seventeen, Scor. And I'm only fifteen. How do you know I'm the right person?"

"You're right, I don't know if you're the right person. But I'll never know if nothing happens between us. What do you want?"

Lily thought about what Scorpius had just said. She wanted to be happy and she was realizing that Rose's words of wisdom from when she was eleven were finally starting to make sense. Sure, happy endings were overrated, but that didn't mean that she couldn't be happy.

"I want you," she said. A huge grin spread across Scorpius's face, as he kissed her for the second time that day, and it was as if the world stopped around them and nothing else mattered. And even though that was an incredibly cliche thing to think, Lily didn't care because Scorpius Malfoy had finally made her happy ending worthwhile.


End file.
